


Before the Mourning

by SelkieWife



Category: Harlots (TV), Russian Doll (TV 2019)
Genre: Alcohol, Charlotte Wells-centric, F/F, F/M, Guilt, I tagged all the ships that happen in the fic, I tagged major character death, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Sex-Worker Phobia, M/M, POV Charlotte Wells, POV Josiah Hunt, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Russian Doll AU, Shame, because Charlotte keeps dying, but it doesn't end in death, but it is more an exploration of Charlotte's character, past trauma, same with Josiah and his ships, this is sort of a fix it fic, time loops
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:13:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26797906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SelkieWife/pseuds/SelkieWife
Summary: “I think…” It is like staring into an abyss and deciding to jump. “I think I’m dead, Isabella.” Saying it out loud doesn’t really help. It only serves to make her more afraid. Dread fills her chest and clutches her heart.A Russian Doll AU of Season 3 where Charlotte keeps dying and reliving the day/night of the Boxing Match. Determined to get herself out of this bizarre time loop, she eventually finds unexpected help in Josiah Hunt, who is surprisingly in her exact same situation. (You don't have to have seen Russian Doll for this to make sense.)
Relationships: Charlotte Wells/Isaac Pincher, Charlotte Wells/Josiah Hunt, Isabella Fitzwilliam/Charlotte Wells, Josiah Hunt/Amelia Scanwell, Josiah Hunt/Prince Rasselas, Josiah Hunt/Rasselas, Violet Cross/Amelia Scanwell
Comments: 18
Kudos: 29
Collections: Harlots Finish Your Fic Fest, Harlots Week 2020





	1. Chapter 1

Charlotte looked up and fell into the wide blue sky. There was hardly a cloud to be seen and those that were there were sailing by, like the wispy sails of a ship, embarking on some grand adventure. She could hear the birds calling and the lively drone of the hurdy gurdy girl on the street corner. She closed her eyes hard and breathed deeply. _There’s the sky to observe, the weather to deliberate_ Isaac had said. Not for her. She had to run. And hadn’t she taught poor Daniel Marney? Cunny was one thing but chat should never be given for free- nor company.

Her shoes took her swiftly to Isabella’s. She wanted to ensure everything was set for the boxing match. Before being let in, she adjusted herself, wondering if Isabella would smell Isaac on her. But Isabella was not Sir George. She was not her keeper. She needn’t be worried about her flying into a jealous rage. And yet, her heart fell at the thought. Isabella would hardly care at all, would she? The lady had made that plain when she began paying her for her company.

She still remembered the elation she felt the night they renewed their tryst… And then Isabella handed her a bag of coin hesitantly, with the faintest glimmer of something in her eyes… questioning perhaps? But Charlotte couldn’t bear it. The hopefulness, the breath of possibility. Isabella might as well have handed her a bag full of moonlight. Charlotte hadn't wanted tears to come, so she had grabbed pouch of guineas with a harsh laugh and pressed a kiss to Isabella’s lips before bolting out of her house and down her long stairway. The tears came later, on her walk home to Greek Street. 

Yet they had continued their tentative friendship. Charlotte couldn’t stay away. And it was good to have friends in high places, even when you wished they could have been more. Perhaps especially when you wished that… and that other night… when Isabella had grabbed her and kissed her deeply. Had there been something there? Something true? _What am I doing dwelling on this?_ She admonished herself as she swept into the foyer. _There are better days ahead, and hope for a bright future_ she told herself. Besides, she valued her freedom.

Her future hopes seemed to manifest themselves in the shape of her Pa standing amidst all the finery of Isabella’s mansion. It was good to see him there. It was as if his nobility of spirit was finally reflected by his surroundings. And then Isabella filled her eyes.

“You light up this room,” Isabella said warmly, as she placed a kiss on Charlotte’s cheek.

The rest of the afternoon flew by in a happy blur. With Lucy dropping by with her new business partner who flirted shamelessly with Pa. Then tea with Nancy and Isabella. She was still in good enough spirits that she found it hard to focus on Nance’s warnings of war and strife from Quigley. She was about to leave with Nancy when Isabella reached out for her arm and drew her close. Charlotte’s breath caught and her eyes lit up. 

“Will you retire with me?” She breathed low. “I will make it very worth your while.” 

The smile in Charlotte’s eyes died as quickly as the smile on her lips spread across her face. She put her cheek against Isabella’s and whispered in her ear. 

“Your wish is my command, Lady Isabella.”

__________꧁꧂___________

As she emerged from Isabella’s bed and back onto the street, she saw that Nancy was standing by the gate, smoking her pipe.

“You waited for me?” She asked.

Nancy shrugged.

“I’ll walk home with ya. It ain’t safe. Not with the devil’s own bawd on the prow and the Pinchers stewing in their defeat…”

Charlotte loved Nancy too much to protest. And it wasn’t more than a few steps they walked before they passed the Pinchers. Charlotte suppressed a smile as she passed Isaac, brushing his shoulder slightly with hers. It made a chill go down her spine and she couldn’t tell if it was due to guilt or exhilaration. She hoped Nancy hadn’t noticed anything. Nancy would feel utterly betrayed if she knew, as would all her girls. They needn’t ever know. It’s not something any of them could understand. She wasn’t even sure if she understood it herself.

Nancy dropped her at Greek Street where she would emerge hours later with Sprat in toe and her heart still stuck in her throat. Even though she had known Ma was alive, it’s still not every day you see a resurrection in your own kitchen. She still felt the anger twisting at the fact that she would leave them just as fast as she had clawed her way back. Leave Pa. For her new Irish husband. She found herself wondering if he was anything like Daniel Marney. Did he whisper her tales of the wonders he’d seen, wax poetic about fish? The thought rankled somehow. Yet she didn’t say a word as they walked. She felt struck dumb by the whole experience. Lucy’s tongue, however, seemed to have no such impediment. 

“I’ve missed her. I have. But this past year I’ve been able to _breathe_. She takes over! She wants us to go to America.”

“She’s always done what she thinks is best for us,” Charlotte interjected.

“Yet chose this life,” Lucy countered.

“Fate chose it,” Charlotte said, her voice sad with the truth of it, “and for her too.”  
  
“You think I’m a terrible person. I can see it!” Lucy accused.

“You can’t beat me I’m fucking Isaac Pincher.” 

“What?” She grasped her arm and giggled, without a hint of admonishment. 

And there it was. She knew she would tell her sister. Lucy might be a cold and cunning courtesan now, yet she still melted in girlish delight whenever her older sister let her in on a secret. Still, Charlotte couldn’t fight a shame faced grimace as she looked away. 

“It makes no sense. But I can’t keep my hands off him,” she confessed.

“It’s good when it’s like that,” Lucy agreed. 

But then she grew pensive and was silent for a few blocks. Finally Charlotte grabbed her hand and stopped her.

“Why aren’t you raging at me, Sprat? You don’t despise me?"

Lucy squeezed her hand and held onto it as she began walking again. After a moment she said, “How could I despise you? After Lord Fallon…”

Charlotte knew a part of Lucy still mourned Lord Fallon. The man who murdered Kitty Carter and countless others. The thought of him made Charlotte’s hair stand up at the back of her neck, yet Lucy had seen something else in him. Some sort of jewel within the wreckage of that putrid monster.

“He was a hell I walked into willingly. And it brought me heaven for a brief moment. Loving Fallon was like… finding a spark in the grate. You think it’s there, a tiny ember that will keep you warm and ignite your flame. But when you go to grasp it, you just come up with nothing but ash and a mess on your hands.” 

They were suddenly jostled into each other by a man with a cocked hat and spectacles. “My apologies,” he stammered as he stumbled past them, smelling strongly of drink.

“Is that Josiah Hunt?” Lucy asked. “He’s got a spark in his throat. He’s blind drunk!“

“What a strange stroke of fate to run into him, today, of all days. Ma shows up and then we run into the man who sent her across the herring pond.” She walked toward his sad form stumbling along the street. “Should we see if he’s alright?” 

She turned back to look at Lucy. As she did so, she saw a flaxen haired girl with the look of an angel standing on the corner staring back at her. She had a companion next to her who was standing with her back toward them, a hood covering her head. It gave her an unsettled feeling, as though this had happened before. This whole conversation with Lucy and the embers, Josiah and that angel girl…

“I feel like I know that girl,” she said.

“What girl?” Lucy asked. 

Suddenly, the girl’s partner turned around and Charlotte’s heart froze.

“Abigail,” she whispered as she started to run toward her, heedless of Lucy calling after her. 

She didn’t even see the carriage until Lucy had pulled her from the arms of death. Being trampled by a horse, what a way kiss the reaper. 

“Charlotte what are you playing at! You could have been killed!” Lucy shouted.

“Where did they go?” Charlotte asked as she looked around frantically, but they were were no where to be seen. Her heart hammered in her chest as her eyes filled with guilty tears. Abigail Warren. The girl she helped Quigley debauch... She had never been able to find out what had become of her. And now she had disappeared again... 

“Come on,” Lucy said as she put a protective arm around Charlotte, “Your dress is at mine. We’ll ready ourselves together.”

Charlotte followed her sister to Golden Square to change for the boxing match, as if in a dream. 

__________꧁꧂___________

The boxing match itself feels like a dream. Isabella kisses her hand at the top of the stairway, so lovely and sincere as if they were merely simple lovers and not a courtesan and her cull. It seems so real and it makes her throat catch with regret. She remembers what she had told Daniel Marney, _I don’t know how to mean it. To make it real._ With Isabella, she has the opposite problem. How can she stop making it real when she knows it isn’t? How can she make it just real enough to please her, but not real enough to get lost in it? 

They enter the great hall and everyone applauds. Isabella continues holding Charlotte’s hand, proudly leading her forward and Charlotte smiles in support. After all it is the harloting you do with your clothes on that is the most important. 

And then Lydia is suddenly in their view like some ghoulish fiend rising from the past to haunt them. 

“What are you doing here?” Isabella asks, her voice like the edge of an ice chip.

“I wanted to introduce to you, my daughter,” Quigley says with a grand flourish.

“Kate Quigley, please to meet you,” the poor girl says.

"Enjoy your evening," Charlotte says politely, ending the conversation and drawing Isabella away. They turn just in time to see Isaac Pincher slither through the door with his brother and Emily Lacey. Could this night get any more cocked up?

She strides forward, bolder than she feels.

“You’re either an imp or an imbecile for showing up here,” she informs him.

“Don’t you want to add some spice to your evening?” He asks, the glint of mischief dancing in his eyes.

“The boxers are practically family. So if you don’t want your pretty little face messed up, you’ll behave like a lamb.”  


Isaac bleats like a lamb in response. But the sound is so demented and absurd that she can’t help but laugh in spite of herself.

Pa has noticed though, and is thrown off his game. She walks toward him, a stab of guilt in her heart.

“What the hell are they doing here?” He demands.

“Keep your enemies close, isn’t that what they say?” Charlotte says. But Pa gives her that look…. That look he always gives Ma when she’s in over her head. 

But it’s true. That’s how it started. When Isaac approached her after her triumph at Isabella’s, she thought if she could keep him wrapped around her fingers, her girls would be safe. She is not sure when she started wanting it for herself more than for strategy. She tries to keep him at arms length but he has slithered into her soul just as surely as he slithered in the door tonight. Perhaps it is the little things she picked up about him. His desperation, his guilt, his loathing for his trade. It is like an echo of her own chained spirit. But he disturbs her too. His violence. His rashness. She hates him and craves him and loathes herself when she is with him. And yet she is drawn into the destruction. Drawn into the rebellion of fucking whoever she wants, whenever she wants, without thought of advantage or gain, either monetarily or emotionally. If anything, fucking Isaac is like embracing outright harm. And the sick thing is she _enjoys_ it. Enjoys being drawn into the abyss. 

Soon enough he draws her away from the festivities, out of the room, to the top of the stairs. She is kissing him, her tongue searching for the jewel inside the monster, for the small ember that may ignite into flame and burn away the hate and despair inside her as surely as he burned down her house. He is a pit of death and emptiness and she is falling deeper and deeper. 

And then Hal is at the top of the stairs with them. He attempts to prise them apart like scallops from their shells, exposing them. She is thrown back. She knows she should run. For help. For freedom… but Isaac’s face. It stops her. He looks so young and afraid. He looks likes the frightened, beaten tavern boy he must have once been. 

“Stop it,” she demands. “Leave him be.” 

She throws herself between them and then-

She falls

She falls

She falls into the wide blue sky. There is hardly a cloud to be seen and those that are there are sailing by, like the wispy sails of a ship, embarking on some grand adventure. She can hear the birds calling and the lively drone of the hurdy gurdy girl on the street corner. She closes her eyes hard and breathes deeply. 

What was she just doing? Where was she? What just happened? She looks behind her. She was kissing Isaac. At the top of Lady Isabella’s staircase. No wait. That’s not it. Why would she be doing that? No, she was just tupping him against that tree. He asked her to walk with him, to bandy words and she denied him. She raises her hand to massage her temple. Everything seems befogged and she can’t quite right her brain…

The sudden need to run, to get to Isabella’s is overwhelming. She turns on her heel and her shoes take her directly to Isabella’s sumptuous house on St. Paul’s. As she enters the foyer and sees Pa, the hairs stand up on the back of her head. The afternoon is going quite the same as before. Wait. Before? Her head continues to be in fog as Lucy comes in with her new business associate and the lively talk bounces off the walls of the mansion. 

“You light up this room,” Isabella says warmly as she place a kiss on Charlotte’s cheek, then she looks closely at her. Charlotte lowers her eyes under the scrutiny.

“Are you alright?” Isabella asks.

“I will be,” she says, smiling apologetically. “Most likely just trotting to hard this morning…”

Nancy arrives and Charlotte goes to her immediately, clutching her hands.

“Charlotte? You look dead on your feet, girl.” 

“Sit, both of you, and have a rest,” Isabella says gesturing them both to the chaise in the adjoining room.

“You are true grace,” Nance tells Isabella. But Charlotte’s throat feels too tight to speak as Isabella turns back to Pa and Lucy.

A servant appears with a tray and pours them tea. Charlotte holds her hands around the tea cup as if it was a mug of ale and not fine china. She hopes the warmth will stabilize her, calm her racing heart. 

“You know of Quigley then? Is that what’s got you in such a state?” Nancy asks.

“She’s out of Bedlam,” Charlotte murmurs, though it makes no sense how she knows that.

Nancy nods mournfully.  


“Even hell spat the wigged witch out. You need to keep your wits about’cha. She was asking for you at the house.”

“So she’s free. It makes no matter. Lucy has her house, her fortune lost. She’s toothless.”

“Don’t underestimate her,” Nance shook her head vigorously. “She’s a cut snake, but she still has fangs and a cut snake is more likely to strike.”

There is a slithering feeling coiling in Charlotte’s stomach. She groans and puts the teacup down on the table between them. 

“Believe me, Lydia is the least of what’s cutting up my peace right now.”

“Who else? The Pinchers? I knew they wouldn’t sit and stew long..”  


“No… no…” Charlotte’s hand comes to her head trying to make sense of it all. 

She leans forward and grabs Nancy’s hand.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, Nance. I was just coming over here to see if Pa had everything sorted for tonight. Then I was going to go upstairs and tup Isabella but now I feel… so profoundly… _empty_.”

Nance takes this odd statement in stride and clucks as if she knows exactly what Charlotte means.

“You always knew this could be a difficult day,” she says.

“What do you mean, Nance?”

“Well… hasn’t it been a whole year since you left Quigley’s and since your Ma…” Here Nance stops, and Charlotte squeezes her hand in support. Nance manages to slice her lips into a smile and says, “Ain’t nothing in this life is easy… Except beating the piss out of culls…” Charlotte can’t help but laugh.

They drink their tea and soon Isabella joins them as well. There are more preparations to discuss and then Charlotte finds herself whisked away into her Lady’s room, then between her sheets, then kissing her deep between her thighs. 

Isabella sinks her fingers into Charlotte’s quim and she crumbles in Isabella’s hands as if she were an ancient ruin. Tears come down her face, though she couldn’t say why. And when they lie in each other’s arms in the after glow, Charlotte wants nothing more but to stay in this pocket of paradise they have created. She feels frightened to leave it. The outside world suddenly seems so uncertain. How did she turn into a harlot who could be so easily taken in by her own cull?’’

“‘I have no secrets anymore,’ she says, with a harlot languishing in her bed.” She teases Isabella. 

They tease and banter and then Isabella gives her an immense sum of money and Charlotte takes it because what else can she do?

Then Isabella is pulled away, looking aghast at the portrait that her brother sent her. Charlotte swallows her bitterness down. They could have had him. They could have taken all the Spartans down in one fell swoop had it not been for Isabella.  


Charlotte looks at the painting of two women entwined in the forest. They look like her and Isabella. And suddenly it is not the painting she is seeing but her own crippled and broken body laying helpless and bloodied on Isabella’s marble floor. And she knows it’s true. She can feel it. The helpless feeling of falling, her neck snapping, her throat twitching. She could not breathe. It was not a dream. It _happened_. 

Her hands are shaking as she hastily pulls up her stockings and tries to tie her garters. Tears are tracking down her face again and she brushes them away angrily.

“Charlotte… what’s wrong?” Lady Isabella asks, coming to her side immediately. “Did the talk of my brother upset you?” 

“No. It’s not just him,” Charlotte looks down at her half tied garter. 

“I think…” It is like staring into an abyss and deciding to jump. “I think I’m dead Isabella.” Saying it out loud doesn’t really help. It only serves to make her more afraid. Dread fills her chest and clutches her heart.

“What can you mean?” Isabella asks, concerned. 

“It’s just… this whole day… it’s already happened. And I die at the end. I fall off of your balcony and smash my head. I get blood all over your marble floor.”

There is a long silence and Charlotte sees Isabella is struggling with what to say. _She thinks I’m mad. She thinks I should be the one in Bedlam, not Quigley._ But instead she reaches out to clasp Charlotte’s shaking hand in her own. 

“A dream?” She asked.

Charlotte shakes her head and shudders.

“Not like any dream I’ve ever known. It was too real.”

“Why would you fall over the balcony tonight? You’ll be in the hall with me at the boxing match.”

“I need to go,” Charlotte says, aggressively wiping her eyes and once again attempting to tie her garter. “I have to go home, I’m meeting Lucy to clean up some more of the house and then changing at the haberdashers’ for tonight.”

Isabella gently takes over the tying of the garters as Charlotte’s hands are shaking too badly. 

“Let me take you to Greek Street in my coach.”  


Charlotte shakes her head.

“No please, allow me,” Isabella insists. “Take it as an expression of my gratitude for tonight.”

“But you’re the one helping us, hosting this boxing match for half the cuffins in London so I can…”

“I insist,” Isabella says as she ties the other ribbon in place.

Charlotte gasps a laugh and brings Isabella’s lips to hers. She tastes Isabella’s smile as she kisses her. 

“Nance is right… you are true grace,” she says. 

It takes a while for Isabella to dress again but soon they are getting in the coach.

“Nancy, is that you?” Isabella says as she sees that Nancy has waited for Charlotte. _Again. She waited again. That already happened too_ Charlotte realizes. 

“Come in the coach with us, we can drop you as well,” she offers.

“Nah, there’s no need. Was waiting to make certain this one got home safe. But I see she is in good hands,” she says with a sly smile, “and I prefer the walk.”

Soon after, they are rattling along the cobblestones to Greek Street. Each shake of the coach makes Charlotte’s heart jump in her chest as if there are enemies on all sides.

Isabella puts her hand on hers again. _Please don’t be kind or tears will come_ she had once said. It is as true now as it was then. Charlotte can’t seem to beat back her tears. 

“I’m sorry for all the trouble,” she says. 

“It’s no trouble,” Isabella says, “No trouble at all. I like to do things for you. I would like to do far more if you will let me.” She glides a gloved thumb over Charlotte’s lower lip.

Charlotte blinked and her throat caught. _She couldn’t mean_ … She looks outside the window of the coach and sees Abigail Warren, standing on the street corner with that strange girl.

“Charlotte, the other night when we got the news of Sophia’s marriage…”

“Stop the coach!” Charlotte whispers urgently.

“What?”

“Stop the coach!” She cries. But before Isabella can give the command she is already opening the door and then she is running toward the two girls. They take off on a run and she bolts after them. She runs awkwardly, her dress is not conducive for running, nor are the fancy shoes that would have put her bunter grandma to shame.

Finally out of breath, she has to stop and slow down. Yet she still moves in the direction of where they fled. She walks and walks. _What am I about? Am I just going to walk until my shoes wear out?_ She finally finds herself standing on Westminster bridge. She walks to the edge and looks down. There are no fish to be seen, just black hungry water flowing under her. She hears a cackle behind her and turns startled. 

She comes face to face with the pretty moll with the vacant blue eyes and fair hair. 

“I know you don’t I? You worked for Nance for a time didn’t you?”

This only makes her laugh harder. “Charlotte Wells… you’re not the only one with new powder in her muff hair,” she laughs and pointed farther down the bridge. 

There she sees Abigail. The poor girl has climbed up onto the railing and looks as if she is planning to jump. Charlotte’s first instinct is to run toward her, but she knows she can’t do anything to startle her, not when she is in this precarious state. She moves in small steps, closer and closer until she is able to reach out and touch her. 

“Abigail… Abigail Warren…”

Abigail turns her head slowly and takes her in. Her eyes are completely unreadable. She looks back to the water and Charlotte knows she has to make her move. 

“Abigail, I know I am probably the very last person you want to see. But please, you don’t want to do this. I have a house on Greek Street. I can offer you protection…” realizing how that sounds, she tries to amend it. “You wouldn’t have do do anything in exchange. You’d have a bed and food. Free. I promise. Please. Take my hand.”

Abigail makes no move to take Charlotte’s hand, but she does lean farther away from the railing. One more step and she’s in the water. There is nothing else to do so Charlotte reaches out.

Just as her hand makes contact with Abigail’s arm, Abigail’s body evaporates as if it were made of smoke rings. Charlotte gasps, feeling her heart pound. _Where the fuck did she just disappear to? What in the name of Saint_ _Fuck is happening?_ She turns violently trying to see if she merely fell off into the water and she didn’t notice. As she is turning to look, her dress catches and she loses her balance. 

She hits the water like a bag of bricks

She falls 

She falls 

She falls into the wide blue sky. That hurdy gurdy girl is playing on the corner again but Charlotte can’t breathe. Water is rushing up her throat, burning her esophagus. She spits and the water comes out in a stream hitting the cobblestones. She sputters, coughs, she throws up. Her eyes are bulging. She clutches her chest. Her heart is beating so hard she is almost convinced that it might burst through her chest and end up in her hands. 

She feels hands come round her.

 _Issac_.

“Charlotte, what is wrong?” She shrugs him off violently and turns to face him. She thrusts her hand out to create a space between them and backs up.

“No. You stay the fuck away from me,” She shouts like some poor mad girl just escaped from Bedlam. “Fate is trying to fuck with me and I refuse to engage in this whirligig of shit.”

“What game are you playing at?” he asks, his eyes flashing sudden anger. He asked that same question at the top of the stairs. The memory sears through her like a flare. 

“Stay back!” She shouts.

“You’re dicked in the head.” He says. Yet he seems more bewildered than angry now. Almost concerned and at a loss of what to do. 

When she doesn’t respond to his insult with either witticism or anger, he looks even more agitated. 

“Look, at least let me walk you.”

She stares at him for a long moment. Finally she moves toward him and put her hand on his shoulder.  


“It’s alright. I don’t need no rescuer. I am the rescuer.” She says. For a moment she even believes it is true. 

His brows crash together in confusion. But he nods. 

“Be careful,” he says, still somewhat bewildered, 

She smiles and says nothing as she turns away from him. But as she crosses the street, she sees that flaxen haired trull again. The one from the bridge. She is thick with gin and swaying slightly to the tune of the hurdy gurdy. Abigail is not with her. Did she succeed in jumping off the bridge? Is she dead?

“Be careful,” she whispers to herself as she continues on her path. 


	2. Chapter 2

The party is in full swing, the gentry titillated by the illegal boxing match. Charlotte attempts to smile and beguile but she is on edge and her head feels as if it is full of bees. She waits impatiently to begin her investigation. She needs to find out why she died. Why Hal was so angry, why he attacked Isaac at the top of the stairs. If she could discover the reasons, perhaps she could prevent this cycle of death and destruction. She could reset everything. It is a wet wick in a dark room, but it is all she has to go on. 

She swallows some port as her eyes scan the room. There is a crowd of cuffins with wigs as high as the clouds. She can feel the blade inside her garter and it makes her feel only slightly more secure. She brought it in case things go sour. Trying to change things could cause them to become even more cocked up and she had Isabella’s welfare to think about besides her own. Not to mention Lucy, and of course, Ma and Nance who will be arriving presently. 

Why in the fiery hole of hell do they even decide to come here, anyway? It not as if her Mr. Young will even know who Pa is, even if they introduce themselves to each other. If Ma hasn’t told her new husband about Pa, why fuss? It’s not as if he will recognize him by name or sight. It’s a small thing that she hadn’t dwelled on the night she first died, but now it seems strange. _Why does Ma always have to make everything about herself and her need for control?_ Yet she is intent on doing everything just the way she did that first night, since there is only one thing she needs to change. Her death. She is afraid of the consequences of interfering in anything else.

Finally, she sees Nance and Ma emerge in the hallway, her Ma dressed in Nancy's clothes. She begins to walk toward them before Nancy even has the chance to beckon her. It is her cue after all. 

“I need to to fetch Jonas away from your Pa,” Ma tells her, her blue eyes pleading.

“That’s him? Your Irish husband whose gonna sweep you back to the good life in America?”

Ma has the decency to at least look ashamed when she says, “He doesn’t know about Will.”

Charlotte says her “lines” exactly as she did that night, as if she were a famed actress treading the boards. Though it pains her heart that this could be their last conversation, laced as it is with anger and regret. 

“It’s funny,” she says letting the venom drip, “I nearly went to America with an Irishman. It’s as if you’re living my life. And I’m in Greek Street living yours,” she turns on her heel to accomplish her task but is surprised how the words still serve to cut her heart. She walks through the throng of people and makes her way to Jonas to deliver her message. She waits a beat after seeing that Mr. Young has found her mother and there he is, Isaac, breathing fire. 

“What game are you playing with Mr. Young?” He asks.

 _Oh? Oh…._ She hadn’t remembered this part. Apparently Isaac knows Mr. Young by name. 

“I’ve just met him.” She hedges, just as she had that first night. 

“Are you intent on stealing from us again, sabotaging our deal?”

“What deal?” She laughs. But when he does not tell her, she doesn’t flirt with him or bandy words as she did before. She links arms with him instead and says low, “please, come with me.”

He follows without protest, and she leads him into one of the inner rooms, as far away from the stair case as she can manage without rousing suspicion from the servants. 

Once she has him in the room she pulls him toward her and whispers seductively, “Now, I am going to need you to be forthcoming.”

“I’d hoped that _you_ would be,” he says as he begins to lift her skirts. 

“No, no, listen,” she says. “What deal are you speaking of?” Then realizing he would be more apt to say if she gave him some information. “My ma’s married to Mr. Young.”

That brings him up short. 

“Your Ma is Mrs. Young!” He looks like he has just swallowed a fish. 

“Yes… how do you know her? What business do you have with her?” She asks, suddenly suspicious herself.

“This whole time… you’ve been trying to dupe us again. You’ve been toying with my affection for you, twisting me up!” 

“I’ve done nothing of the sort!” Charlotte protests. “I didn’t even know my Ma was back in London until earlier this morning.

“You said your ma was bawd, not a landowner, that she’d sold you into this life.”

“That’s true. She use to be a bawd- she must be a landowner now. I only just found out. She only just came back today!"

“Every word that rolls off your tongue is laced with lies,” he accuses and she moves back thinking of the blade in her garter. 

“What about you? You’ve been lying since we met. What are you even doing here? Why did you and your brother show up here?”

“These past days have been the only real thing I’ve felt since coming back here. When I looked in your eyes I saw truth- a connection. Now I see I was just staring into a fucking abyss.”

“Isaac,” she begins. The intensity of his ardor is making her uneasy.

His sea green eyes become watery as he fixes them on her, utterly defeated. 

“Was anything… Any moment between us true?”

Charlotte pauses considering him. But she isn’t able to answer before Hal burst into the room like a raging storm.  
  
“Nothing between ya?” He shouts as he begins punching Isaac. 

“Get off him,” Charlotte cries, shifting her skirt up so that she has her hand on the knife.

"You ruined everything for _her_!?”

“Leave him be,” Charlotte moves forward and brandishes her knife against Hal’s throat. A moment of stillness falls upon all of them. The only sound is the faint echos of the boxing match down the hall and Isaac’s heavy breathing. Charlotte can see that Isaac is bleeding from the mouth, she turns to him and reaches out. “Are you alright?” She asks. And it is a mistake. Hal grabs the wrist that is holding the knife and punches her in the stomach. 

All the air is sucked from her lungs and she is unable to take a breath. Isaac dives for Hal and there is a struggle between them. She tries her best to rise but as she does Hal has managed to pull out a pistol. Isaac puts his hand out but it is too late. Hal shoots it straight at her head.

She falls

She falls

She falls into the wide blue sky, and the hurdy gurdy girl and the clouds and _what diabolical fuckery is this!!!!!_ She screams inside. _How does this situation just keep getting worse and worse? So Ma is to blame then. It figures that that she would be the center upon which this wheel spins._

She tries to think. She could go give Isabella her regrets and track down Ma… tell her that making a deal with the Pinchers is ill fated and ill timed. She rushes to Isabella’s. The clacking of her shoes striking against the marble floor of the foyer is overly loud and synchronized with her pounding heart. 

She avoids going over to Pa and instead seeks out Isabella instead.

“You light up this room,” Isabella proclaims as she places a kiss on her cheek.

Charlotte doesn’t know what comes over her, but she pulls Isabella into her arms and holds her in an embrace that lasts a bit too long. 

“Can you stay for a bit?” Isabella whispers in her arms. “I will make it very worth your while.”

Charlotte disengages. She really should get to Ma and talk to her about the deal, but she supposes she has time. And after all, this could be the last time with Isabella… 

“Alright… but I can’t stay long…”

“Well let’s take advantage of the time we have,” Isabella tells her as a mischievous smile graces her lips. 

They find their heaven between Isabella’s crisp sheets and then Charlotte is making her apologies, in between lingering kisses. “You will stay tonight?” Isabella asks hopefully as she follows her into the hallway.

Charlotte turns back and plants another kiss on Isabella’s full, pouting lips at the top of the stairs. “Believe me, I will do everything in my power,” she assures her.

It is already getting so late though, she thinks as she rushes down the stairs. When she is only a few steps into the long descent, she feels her ankle twist and she looses her balance. Her stomach lurches hideously as she falls

She falls

She falls into the wide bluesky. 

_Fuck._

“Alright no stairs!” She shouts to no one in particular as she brushes her dress off and makes her way back to Isabella’s.

“You light up this room,” Isabella says as she tries to kiss her cheek, but this time Charlotte dodges her and pulls her into the library, avoiding the stairway like the plague. 

“Charlotte,” Isabella laughs, “what are you up to…”

“I just came here for a moment,” She kisses her and then runs over to the door to lock it.

“Charlotte… what bit of mischief are you brewing?”

Charlotte slips her hands up Isabella’s heavy gown and presses her against a bookshelf. A low moan escapes from Isabella's mouth as Charlotte kisses her neck while her finger circles around her quim. They move against the bookcase a little too hard and tip the heavy bronze bust of Isabella’s father over. It bludgeons Charlotte in the head and she falls

She falls

She falls into the wide blue sky

 _Fuck my old boots._ Alright,she thinks, no tupping. And if there won’t be any tupping, she reasons it is better to stay away from Isabella’s altogether. Better to apologize for her absence tonight than turn up dead at her house again. She decides that she will seek Ma out directly at the boarding house.

Suddenly feeling as though she may have limited time to get to her Ma before death has her in its snares again, she breaks into a run. She never sees the carriage before it runs her down. The horses rearing back, screeching, the groom shouting bloody murder as she falls

She falls

She falls into the wide blue sky. She hears the hurdy gurdy girl’s merciless droning. It sounds like a funeral dirge now and she stares blankly. There is nothing for it. There is nothing to do. She’s caught in this queer quandary and she can’t seem to find the way out. 

She walks to Isabella’s for there is nothing else to do. She goes through the motions of the day… waiting for her opportunity to talk to Ma. She is surprised when she makes it all the way to Greek Street alive. And there she is. Margaret Wells with the slipperiest neck in all of London. She feigns her surprise again, embracing her mother and listening patiently about her new Irish husband and her cock-eyed plans. When Ma rises from the table and says she has to go, she makes her move. 

“I’ll walk you Ma.”

“There’s no need,” Ma begins.

“We’re changing at the Haberdashers aren’t we?” Lucy questions.

“I’ll meet you there in a bit,” Charlotte assures her. “I just need some time with Ma.” And she holds her arm out to her as warmly as she can muster. 

As they walk along the cobblestones, Charlotte begins her piece. 

“You can’t sell the land to the Pinchers, Ma.”

Margaret Wells considers her. “How did you know about that?”

“Emily Lacey is tupping Hal Pincher,” A lie. She hardly ever talks with Emily. But she doesn’t see the need to muddy the waters with talk of how she is tupping Isaac or how many times she has recently died. 

“Are they a bad lot then?”

“If I tell you, do you promise you will call off the deal and not aim to seek more revenge?”

“Why?” Margaret Wells turns to her with a flash in her eyes and her fists pressed against her hips. In spite of the new respectable clothing, she has become the arch bawd of London once again.

Charlotte swallows nervously. 

“They were responsible for the fire, but…” 

Before she can say another word, Margaret has looked up to the sky in exasperation as she unleashes a stream of rage filled expletives. 

“Low-down, conniving wind fuckers! Trust Emily Lacey to get in with scum!” She shouts.

“Hush, Ma!” Charlotte says sharply and hustles her into an alleyway. “What are you trying to do, let all of Soho know you’re here? Let them know the Wells murderess is back from the dead?”

This seems to quiet Ma for a moment and she pulls her hood back up. Taking her opportunity, Charlotte continues.

“We have already had our retribution, you must not involve yourself beyond stopping the deal.”

“How can I just stand by when those who would harm my family are allowed to walk free?” 

Suddenly rage fills Charlotte’s chest and venom climbs up her throat.

“Why must you always do this?” she spits out. “Why must you always try to smother a fire with gunpowder? You come back into our lives when we were just starting to _breath_ again and spread your destruction like a plague.”

“How can you say these things to me? When all I have ever done is protect my family.

“Don’t meddle in this, Ma,” she warns.

“It seems my meddling might be in order. I’m not gone more than a year and I come back to find my entire house has been burned to the ground. What happened Charlotte? Did you let those Pincher boys charm ya like Emily Lacey? Hadn’t I taught you better than that? Out of all my children you have never once accepted my help!”

It is all Charlotte can do not to slap her. 

“Perhaps because your help so often comes in the form of harm and devastation,” Charlotte says, trying to ignore the tears that are building behind her eyes. 

Charlotte can see that has hit her Ma hard, but Margaret stands resolute under her condemnation.  


“All I have ever done, all I ever want to do is protect my family. This whole year I did what I had to do, scraped and clawed my way back here, worried sick over all of ya. I have stood on the gibbet, staring into the pit of death but that is nowhere as cruel as facing an ungrateful daughter. It's like staring into the abyss.”

“I’m the abyss? _I’m_ the abyss?” Charlotte can barely breathe due to the tears seemingly clawing through her throat. There is seemingly no fixing what had been broken long ago. She turns on her heel and storms down the street determined to walk until her legs give out. 

It begins to grow dark. She knows she should be at Lucy’s by now but she doesn’t care. She continues to walk. She stops in front of the Boar’s Head and decides to go in and get a drink. One drink turns into many, and when she finally stumbles out of the tavern, the oil lamps are lit. She is missing her own death. But she is also missing Isabella’s party and her Pa’s boxing match. She feels the guilt begin to spread through her chest and tries to drown it out by downing another gulp of gin from her bottle. She trudges aimlessly along the street

“What’s on your head,” a flat voice calls out to her. 

She turns and is suddenly face to face with that flaxen haired bunter with the angelic face and eerie expression.

The girl is peering at Charlotte in an almost vexingly curious way. Her big, luminous eyes darting nervously.

“I said, what’s on your head? Is that a wig or your own hair?”

Charlotte approaches her cautiously. 

“I know you. I do. You were one of Nancy’s girls. Your name is Betsey. Isn’t it?” She could have sworn Nance had told her that poor Betsey Fletcher had died at the pox house. Yet this girl was alive and well and didn’t seem to have any pox scars. 

“Nah…You can call me Arrow, you know, if you want…” she says, evading the question. 

“Arrow, I’m Charlotte,” she says as she takes another sip of gin.

Charlotte looks down and realizes that Arrow isn’t wearing any shoes. Her feet are dirty from the grime of the city and they look cold, as the temperatures have dropped mercilessly. 

“Why aren’t you wearing any shoes, Arrow?” 

“Someone buzzed ‘em while I slept.”

“Someone stole your shoes?” Charlotte asks. For some reason her drunken sensibilities are much more outraged at the cruelty of this common crime than she would normally be. 

“Have a nip of gin, Arrow.” Charlotte hands the gin over to the Arrow. 

Arrow takes the bottle, smiling and leans in intimately. 

“Can I tell you something?” She asks. 

Charlotte starts to nod but then has to swallow back some tears. 

“Well, I wouldn’t tell me anything if I were you. Because I’m not the kind of person you tell secrets to… being that I’m the _abyss_ ,” she said, echoing her mother and Isaac’s words. 

Arrow’s face crumbles in mirth and lets out a barking laugh. Charlotte joins her, laughing so violently it feels more like deep heaving sobs. Arrow grabs her hands and comes close to Charlotte’s face. Charlotte wonders if she is about to proposition her. She might take her up on the offer if she does. But Arrow leans in close and says, “I want to fix your hair…”

“Yes..” Charlotte says immediately. “Yes.”

Arrow takes her into a deserted section of the street and down into a twisting alley. In the darkness she can just make out a blanket and a few other items of a life lived out on the streets. A brush, a bowl, a knife. 

Oh. 

“ _You’re_ going to kill me,” Charlotte says with certainty.

“I’m not,” Arrow says.

She has Charlotte sit down on the blanket with her and then begins to unpin her hair. The hair falls in curling disarray around her face. She pulls out all the many hair cushions and hair attachments and Charlotte begins to feel a lightness as they fall in a heavy heap around them.

“You see this?” Arrow waves one of the hair attachments at Charlotte. It looked like a dead rat. The hair had probably came from some poor chit that had to sell it for coin. 

“This is the old you. This is who you were day, after day, after day, after day. But it’s gone now. And this,” she slides her fingers into Charlotte’s scalp. It feels like heaven. “This is the new you. Now you can be whoever you want to be.”  


“I’ll never understand why you’re being nice to me.” Charlotte murmurs.

They finish the rest of the bottle of gin and huddle together to sleep it off. Charlotte has to close her eyes because every time she opens them she feels as though she is going to spin into the sky. 

They are both shivering violently. Charlotte pulls the threadbare blanket over them. “It’s fucking colder than a nuns nip,” she says as they try to find some warmth in each other. Sleep creeps out of the cold and claims her exhausted body and mind. She begins to fall into unconsciousness. 

She falls 

She falls

She falls into the wide blue sky. Again. She can hear the lively drone of the hurdy gurdy girl on the street corner. She closes her eyes hard and breathes deeply. She tries to steady herself. 

_I froze to death. Fiend seize it, that’s dark…_ she thinks as she stumbles into the bright daylight. It is hard to believe how cold it will become in the night, for at the moment the weather is temperate. Yet she still shivers as she makes her way to Isabella’s. 

This time she desperately tries to control herself when she tells her Ma about the Pinchers. Yet it ends much the same as it did previously. She swallows her tears as she heads to the haberdashers to change. She goes through the preparations for the boxing match as if in a dream but she can’t keep thinking about her interaction with Arrow the night before. Or was it the death before? She doesn’t know how she is supposed to piece together time anymore. What if she dies again tonight?

Before the boxing starts, Charlotte turns to Isabella.

“Bella I have to go, it’s important.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Isabella asks, dismayed. 

“I will explain it all when I return but I must go see if someone is alright.”

“But you can’t leave, you are hosting this party with me…” she seems incredulous.

“I can’t explain now. I’m sorry,” she says as she plants a kiss on her lips and leaves the hall. She can feel Isabella’s eyes on her still as she walks through the doorway, luckily managing to evade Emily and the Pinchers who are only just driving up to the door. 

She walks to Soho and wanders around the Boar’s Head Tavern until she comes upon Arrow again. 

Arrow looks slightly startled as Charlotte approaches her. But then her vacant eyes float up to Charlotte’s hair and she smiles. 

“I want to help you with your hair,” she says. 

“Perhaps another night,” Charlotte says as she wraps her cloak around Arrow. “Let’s get you out of this chill. There’s a bed at my house on Greek Street. It’s going to be much too cold out here for you with no shoes tonight.”

 _  
___________ ꧁꧂ _____________

Arrow is still sleeping soundly in the bed as the morning light creeps through the window. Charlotte pulls the blanket around the girl’s shoulders and readies herself to go out. There is a bite in the cold morning air and she makes her way over to the Boar’s Head Tavern, hoping that Pa will be there. This is the longest she has ever stayed alive and she is anxious to discover what occurred during the boxing match. When she comes through the door, she realized that Pa is not there yet, so she sits at a corner table to wait with a hot cup of salep. 

She looks up and sees that Josiah Hunt is sitting at a table across from her, though he hasn’t seen her yet. She starts at the sudden memory of bumping into him with Lucy before all the deaths started. She should go speak to him, she thinks as she begins to rise from her seat.

However, just at that moment a shout goes up and the whole tavern dissolves into chaos. Charlotte looks around and realizes that a fire is spreading throughout the premises. Thick black smoke is curling through the tavern and the front entrance is covered in flames. Someone throws a chair through the window to provide a means of escape. Charlotte stands still for a moment, morbidly curious to how this death might feel. Will she die choking on smoke, struggling to breathe or will the flames lick her flesh causing her unimaginable agony. She turns to see if Josiah Hunt managed to escape and is shocked to find him still at his table, calmly staring off into the distance. 

“Oi, Hunt!” She shouts through the din and desperation as she crosses over to him. “Bolt your boots, man! Didn’t you hear we’re all about to die?”

He lifts his gaze slowly and if he is surprised to see her it doesn’t register on his impassive face. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “I die all the time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josiah's POV. It starts before he meets Charlotte in the burning Tavern and then continues from that meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it has taken so long between updates! This fic was my Finish Your Fic February project! The fic is finished but needs editing, so I will be posting once a week!
> 
> I was very inspired by mercurygray's tumblr fic: [A Natural Order](https://mercurygray.tumblr.com/post/177097218945/a-natural-order) when I was writing Josiah's thoughts about marriage. I highly recommend reading is as it is a brilliant character study.
> 
>  **TW/CW for this Chapter** : Josiah has a lot of internalized homophobia and biphobia. There is a lot of discussion about religious beliefs and how that effects Josiah's own reaction to his identity and to Amelia and Violet's relationship. (He is going to grow significantly by the end.) There is also a brief mention of persecution and executions of gay men in the 18th Century- but no more than what was mentioned in the actual show.

Josiah Hunt opened the door and stepped out into the endless day. There were blue skies overhead and the hustle and bustle in the streets of Soho sounded like a well rehearsed symphony. Josiah tilted his head up and observed the sky. It was vast and blue, with wispy clouds that resembled fish swimming in a wide ocean full of possibility. He closed his eyes and steadied himself. _Another chance._ He’d been given another chance to make things right. 

He turned his mind away from what had just occurred. He couldn’t focus on his last death, the way his chest collapsed under the wheel of the runaway cart… No. For some indiscernible reason he was back again, standing in his client’s doorway, alive and whole. He had been granted another chance to make it back to Amelia. Another chance to change her mind before it was too late. He didn’t have time to observe and contemplate the sky- he had to run. 

He needed to get to the corner of the street in time to assist the young man who was about lose his footing. He had fallen in front of him the day of his first death, spilled onto the hard cobblestones and cut his forehead. When Josiah had tried to assist him, he had shrugged him off and spat in his face. Yet, ever since that first death, he had made a game of trying to get to him before he fell so that he could steady him before he hit the hard stone pavement. He had it down to a science at this point and easily grabbed his arm in time. 

“C…c-areful there,” he said as he steadied the man. He felt so light in his arms. His colorful clothing was streaked with the grime of the streets and there was a frantic look in his dark eyes.

Before he could ask if he could be of any more assistance, the man hurled back his head and spit directly into his face before running off. 

“Crapping cull!” the man shouted behind him as he disappeared down the alleyway. 

Josiah simply took his handkerchief and wiped the spittle off of his face. It seemed as though his brief stint as Justice had earned him nothing but distain. He couldn’t let it bother him. He had only been doing his duty, after all. Striving to be a servant to justice. But it left a bitter taste as he swallowed his reasoning down.

His boots struck sternly against the cobblestones as he made his way to where he knew he would find Amelia in a shabby little room in Villiers Street. He had exactly fifteen minutes from the door of his last client of the day to Amelia’s new… residence… to contemplate what he might do differently this time that would convince Amelia to come home with him, or at least be more forthcoming about her reason for choosing to flee their life, their house, and their marriage.

He knew that Amelia was not herself recently. She had always been reserved with him physically. But that is to be expected from such a moral, upright woman. In fact, sometimes that was precisely what gave him cause to worry. He worried that perhaps she could tell… that she could somehow smell the stench of perversion on him… in his soul. But he shrugged off the thought almost as soon as he had it. That folly in his youth had been long ago. He had dealt with it. He had lived his life in an upright fashion since that failure… And besides, Amelia was not one to sit in judgement of others’ sins. Why, the entire reason they had met was due to how fervently she believed that Violet Cross could be redeemed.

He had reasoned that Amelia’s distance and melancholy was due to her grief over the death of her mother. Mrs. Scanwell had lived with them since the day they wed until her health rapidly deteriorated. It was almost as though she had clung to this world just long enough to see her daughter settled. And then she had slipped out of it as peacefully as could be hoped for one night.

The night Mrs. Scanwell died, he held Amelia in his arms as she trembled and cried. It made his head light and his heart feel a sweet kind of pain coursing through it. He had never felt more intimacy, more entwined with another human being. Well, not since…. _Why_ in the name of all that is holy was he thinking of _that_ sordid affair today? He shrugged off his thoughts again and strode hastily along the street.

He swiftly made his way to where he always finds Amelia. In a small room at the Saracon’s Head Tavern in Villiers Street. It took some searching and asking around. Finally he got his information as to Amelia’s whereabouts from an inebriated girl with clear blue eyes and flaxen hair. It only took five chillings to pull the truth from her lips. And so here he was, just as he had been every day that he died.

It was as rowdy as the devils own chambers around the entrance of the Saracon Head, nestled as it was in this nook of vice and criminality. He cringed to think of Amelia residing in such a place due to his failures as a husband. He leaned against the wall of the building to gather himself. He did not know how many more chances he would be granted to make this right. He fumbled in his pocket for her letter. It was still there, next to the gold wedding ring she left with it. Though he has read it and reread it countless times, he still cannot decipher a reason for her decision. Nonetheless, he opens it and read it again. 

_My Dear Josiah,_

_I must leave you. For I have played you false and for this I am grievously sorry. Please know that I hold you in the highest regard and that I am ever grateful for what you did for me, my mother, and for Violet Cross. Yet I cannot and must not continue this pretense anymore._

_I know in my soul that leaving is for the best. Please try to forgive me. And be happy._

_May you always rest in God's favor,_

_Amelia_

He crumpled the letter in his hand in frustration. Yet, almost immediately, he opened it again and smoothed it out. He was wrong to wrinkle it. 

It was curious that she mentioned Miss Cross. It seemed that Amelia still harbored some sisterly love for the young thief that she had so valiantly defended.

Suddenly a memory of their first interaction stabbed him in the heart.

_“Justice, I pray you might have mercy on the girl, Violet Cross. She’s known no other life than vice but I have seen goodness in her heart. Goodness and… love.”_

Amelia’s face had been dirty but her clothes were modest and she had approached him with a dignity of spirit that he could not seem to brush off or look away from.

_“She is worth saving, Sir.”_

Her hands had fluttered, nearly taking his hands into hers in a way that had made his breath catch.

And when he had stammered his promise, that he would assess her for himself, she had clasped her hands together and her voice had sung out with a warmth that went straight to his heart.

_“Thank you, Sir. I thank you and I will pray for you!”_

Her words had followed him down the alley as he walked away, enveloping him like an embrace and coiling around his heart. Her words had inspired him to take Violet into his house, though it was against his better judgment, to make her his maid, to trust her. And in the end, of course, Violet ran before her sentence of servitude was complete. Yet Amelia had never said a harsh word about her or expressed disappointment in any way. He supposed that her indulgence was due to the fact that Violet, with all her sins and faults, had brought them together as a happy family. Or what he thought was a happy family until Mrs. Scanwell died and Amelia retreated further and further away from him.

He took a breath and resolved that he would break this spell once and for all. He would convince Amelia to come home and that would smash this ungodly cycle of dying and reviving again and again.

He walked into the Saracon’s Head with renewed purpose, climbing the narrow stairs to the entrance of a small dingy room.. As always, the door was open and Amelia was cleaning the window. There was about half an inch of soot on the glass and he supposed that she wanted to be able to see out of it. He stood in the shadow of the doorway. Sometimes he did this- just stood there, watching her for a moment. He used to watch her this way at home as well. Little moments like this, her dusting something, her smiling to herself as she read a passage of a book, her playing the harpsichord in the evening. He had bought the harpsichord for her. It was quite the expense but when she told him that she knew how to play it, he knew they must have one in their home. He winced at the pleasureful memories of her playing the fine instrument, the light of the candles glimmering off her beautiful face, raised in song or even just revelation. 

Finally, he spoke her name.

“Amelia,” He said, softly.

She turned and dropped her rag instantly, looking at him with both shock and dismay. 

“Josiah,” she breathed. 

“Amelia,” he says again, nodding stiffly.

“You got my-

“Your letter yes, I received it,” he says already going to the teapot to pour them both tea.

“Allow me to bring you some-"

“Tea yes,” Josiah said. He has done this many times before. “Allow me,” he said as he poured some tea into a chipped cup.

She smiled gratefully but also nervously as if being called up to judgment.

He remembered suddenly, that she would sometimes get so excited to have a lump of sugar- “just one” with her tea at home and his heart tightened in his chest to see her living here, without even small luxuries like a pinch of sugar in her tea.

Once they were sitting with their tea, Amelia began to broach the uneasy topic. “Well,” she began, “I know you are probably seeking…”

“Answers yes,” Josiah agreed. He had been doing nothing but seeking answers since his first death. He was in a spiral of questions day after endless day, but still no answers in sight. 

“I only w…w… I only mean to know…” It suddenly felt like barriers were being erected in front of each word he wanted to say.

He began again, “Have I c..c-aused you any offense or harmed you in any way?”

Amelia’s eyes had been downcast but at his question, she raised them to his.

“No!” She said adamantly, “No, no….” Suddenly she crossed the room and knelt down before him. Her hands clasping his free hand. 

“Your heart is pure and good and you have never been anything but kind and considerate to me.”

He looked at her incredulously, his fears fading somewhat. “I know that I have not been able to provide you the life I promised…”

“You have been a wonderful provider for me and my mother,” she insisted.

“I thought perhaps you thought that I had shirked my duty… to justice...”

“No… it wasn’t… it wasn’t about any of that. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Truly, he hadn’t _thought_ he had. He had faced ruination when he was fired by the Lord Chief Justice. But he had swallowed his pride and did what he needed to do in order to establish a practice as a solicitor. It was hardly the most noble profession- settling petty disputes and matters of property, but it kept the roof over their heads, food on the table, and the medicines for Amelia’s ailing mother. And it had kept him steadfast. Instead of losing himself at the bottom of a bottle of gin and failure, he had his family to work for. 

“Then… _why?”_ He asked, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. 

She only looked at him though, her eyes filling with tears. She looked down at her hands and a tear slid down her face. How he wanted to brush it away but he felt frozen to the spot. She clasped her hands together and wrung them. Her hands looked chapped. 

“Josiah… I’m so-

“Sorry! Yes I know. You tell me that every time!

“What do you mean every- ?”

“And your _letter_ was filled with your platitudes of sorrow,” Josiah’s voice was rising in temperature, in spite of the the fact that he wanted this conversation to go as amicably as possible. “A letter,” he said a little calmer, but the word was laced with bitterness. “I would have thought you would have the decency not to leave like Miss Cross…” 

“Do not speak ill of her..”

“Like a thief in the night,” he nearly shouted and she closed her mouth, looking down. 

“ _Why_ , Amelia. Why did you leave? What are you thinking? Do you think you can make a life here, truly? On your own? What will you do? Will you take any money…”

“No!” She cried out as if he had hurt her. “You have already done too much for me already, far too much…”

“Too much? Amelia you are my _wife!_ ”

She merely looked at him with such true sadness. _Was she his wife? Had she ever been his wife? Truly?_ He knew he needed to ask and yet, the words did not make it to his lips. 

“I really will be alright. The girls are in need of washing and mending… they pay well…” she told him feebly.

“So you’ll be a seamstress for the brothel girls,” he felt a cruel smile tugging at his lips. 

“My mother taught me there was honor…” 

“Honor in righteous poverty, yes. I know.” He said interrupted spitefully. “I know what she taught you.”

There was a long silence and Amelia sighed deeply. 

“You seem so… angry..”

“Yes!” He cried, surprising himself with his fury and frustration. The tea flew out of his cup and onto the table, making a mess. That is all he ever made- a mess. He pretended to be an upright man but of course she saw him for what he really is. A temperamental boor, hiding beneath a priggish nature.

“Amelia, I’m s…s-orry. The tea… that wasn’t supposed to happen. I apologize,” he said. He could barely look at her. “Forgive me,” he apologized again as he put the tea cup down clumsily in the mess he had made and headed toward the door.

 _You give up too easily_ , he remembered Violet Cross’ taunting words. 

“It won’t be like this next time,” he assured her. She merely gave him a bewildered look as he hastily took his leave, running down the stairs and back out into the street. 

His heart hammered in his chest and he felt quite light headed. He should not have raised his voice to her or behaved in such an uncouth manner. Why had he done that? In all his memories of his parents’ marriage, there was no such strife to be found between them. No, his parents' example had taught him that a well ordered marriage was a microcosm that reflected the way an ideal society should work. As a younger man he had sometimes likened his study of The Law to the devotion of a man to his wife. And when his beliefs about the system of law had fallen apart, he had put all that dedication into his marriage with Amelia. He had believed so fully that she would keep him steadfast and that in return, he would keep her safe.

Yet how could he keep her safe if she would not allow it? How would she keep him steadfast, if she could just walk away from the legally binding promise they made to each other. It defied all reason and flew in the face of everything he believed. It was, perhaps, even more upsetting than when he had discovered the law was nothing but ink on paper written by self-serving rich men. 

He found himself at the Boar’s Head Tavern. Some days, after pleading with Amelia, he went to visit the cemetery where his mother was buried. But he didn’t feel that he could face her today. Not after this recent failure. She had been so proud of him when he became a barrister. So proud that he was following in the footsteps of his father, who had died years earlier. He liked to believe that she would have been equally proud when he was named a Justice of the Peace. Ordinarily, it was only the nobility who were chosen for such prominent positions in society. Corrupt, wealthy men who did not have the knowledge of the Law. His rise was an outlier to the way of things and as such, it had ruffled feathers that led to his eventual downfall when he refused to bend to the will of the wealthy. 

He was dismissed in disgrace and now his marriage was falling apart as well. No, his gentle mother would not be very proud of him, would she? He breathed in sharply, remembering, quite suddenly, another time his mother had not been proud of him. His chest tightened and he lowered his head in shame, feeling as though he were caught in that awful moment of discovery once again. _“It is an abomination, Josiah. It is against the natural order of things.”_ Her words had cut deeply. He was so grateful that she had seen it fit to give him another chance, to bring him back into the fold of her heart. He could only hope that Amelia may one day find it in her heart to do the same. If only he knew how he had offended...

He sat in the corner to nurse his bottle of gin, to attempt to drink his failures away. He drank until the street lamps were lit. He took Amelia’s letter out to read once again, but when the ink began to run together, he realized it was time for him to stumble back to his empty home. 

The house was unnaturally cold without Amelia’s warm presence and he collapsed in their bed without even removing his outer garments, falling into a fitful sleep.

He woke with a start, his head feeling as though it were being pounded into tripe. He rubbed aggressively at his eyes and peered out the window. He had survived all night. This was the longest he had ever survived. Instinctively, he moved to grasp Amelia’s letter. It was gone. He dug inside his other pocket and breathed a deep sigh of relief. The gold ring was still there, still safely nestled in his pocket.

But the letter… He must have left it at the Boar’s Head. He groaned as he made his way out of bed and over to the chamber pot to relieve himself. Then, he smoothed his hair and outer jacket, pulling his vest down, retied his boots. Finally after getting himself together, he left the house and made his way down the street back to the tavern.

When he entered the Boar's Head, his eyes frantically scanned the room for the letter. There it was! It was still on the table in the corner, just where he left it last night. He sat down and held the thin parchment in his hands. He folded it carefully and placed it back into his pocket. He then let his head fall forward into his hands.

A few minutes passed, or perhaps a year. He gradually became aware of the tavern springing to life as the morning crowd gathered. It seemed that one of the tavern girls attended him. He couldn’t remember what he said to her, but there was suddenly a steaming hot cup of salep in front of him and it smelled so welcoming.

Suddenly a shout went up and the whole tavern began to dissolve into unruly chaos. Josiah looked up from his mug and saw that a fire was spreading throughout the premises. The thick black smoke curling through the tavern made vision difficult, but he could see that the front entrance was covered in flames. Someone threw a chair through a window to provide a means of escape. Josiah sat still, regarding the situation cooly.

“Oi, Hunt!” A woman’s brash voice cut through the din and desperation as she crossed over to him. Suddenly he was face to face with Charlotte Wells. 

“Bolt your boots, man!” She shouted at him, bold as a firebrand herself. “Didn’t you hear? We’re all about to die?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said sullenly, “I die all the time.”

She looked him up and down, her blue- grey eyes beginning to water from the smoke.

“So do I,” she said softly.

It is like a jolt of lighting and suddenly he is rising from his seat. At that moment, a beam cracks and falls from the ceiling.

 _Have grace towards my daughters_ he remembers Mrs. Wells’ last plea. He must shield her.

He reaches out and steps forward…

He steps into the endless day. There are blue skies overhead, and the hustle and bustle in the streets of Soho suddenly sound harsh and out of tune to him, distempered. Josiah tilts his head up and observes the sky. It is vast and blue, with wispy clouds that resemble fish swimming frantically away from some predator. He closes his eyes and steadies himself.

 _Good God_ … he thinks. Charlotte Wells was in the tavern and what she said to him... “Me too.” What did she mean by that? Is she going through the same cycle of death and rebirth? No, surely not. During his entire ordeal, trapped in this whirligig of time, he had not met another on this same maddening journey.

Though he was _linked_ to Charlotte Wells, through the dealings with her mother last year. Did Charlotte know that her mother was still alive? Was this cruel cycle of death and rebirth somehow connected to the actions he took with Margaret Wells?

 _Have grace toward my daughters._ It was her last plea to him. And he hadn’t even checked in on them after he shipped their mother off to penal servitude in America.

His guilty thoughts propel him and he rushes headfirst into the suddenly shameful day. He is distracted when he gets to the corner of the street and the young man he usually helps has already lost his footing and spilled out onto the pavement, cutting his forehead very badly. Josiah just stands there, staring at the lad as the blood drips down his face. He wants to reach out and help him up, but his hand is shaking. His whole body is shaking.

“What are you staring at, crapping cull!” The lad shouts at him as he rises off the pavement and spits into his face. He rubs the spittle off of his face in a daze and starts off for Greek Street. 

_No._ _Wait._ He thinks. What is he doing? He doesn’t have time to go find Charlotte and puzzle this out. He needs to continue on his track. This strange turn of events might have effected more than one thing. He must get to Amelia and make sure that she is alright.

He digs inside his pocket and realizes the letter is gone and so is Amelia’s wedding ring. _No…_ he suddenly feels himself slipping. He feels like he is being pulled down to murky depths. But he grinds his teeth and moves forward. 

He rushes to the Saracon’s Head and climbs the stairway as though the fire that just consumed him is still licking at his heels. When he gets there he realizes that everything is the same. Amelia is still at the window washing it. She is fine, she is safe. He takes a steadying breath. 

“Amelia,” he whispers. 

She turns around, clearly stunned by his presence, but she doesn’t drop the rag this time. She seems more concerned than startled.

“Josiah…” She walks toward him. When he says nothing in response, she looks down at the rag still in her hands and fidgets slightly.

“I suppose I should have known you would find me sooner or later.”

He doesn’t say anything again. He should probably say something but the words will not rise to his lips. _Charlotte Wells was in the tavern… Charlotte Wells… Why?_

Amelia is talking to him again but it is as though they are both leagues under the sea for all the sense it makes. 

“Josiah?” He looks up and she is smiling timidly at him. “… you haven’t said anything since you arrived. You’re frightening me…”

“I’m sorry, Amelia,” he rubs his temples. “It’s only that everything is out of joint suddenly. I c…c-ame here to try to reason with you. But… it seems that this…” he gestures expansively, “it is utterly beyond my scope…”

There is a silence as she takes him in, her breath seeming to catch in her throat. Then, she nods, resigned.

“You found out about me and Violet then?”

_What?_

For a moment it is as if words and speech do not exist. He stares at her and images flood his mind. The flushed embraces the two women would share at the door whenever Amelia would arrive for Violet’s reading lessons. The familiar touches, the little looks and smiles exchanged, as if they shared a secret, some happy secret between them. The way Violet never left Amelia’s side when she was wounded… The way he would sometimes catch Violet looking his way with a particular sad jealousy that was altogether different than her usual spiteful glaring. 

“Miss C…c-ross?” he manages to get out, at an utter loss. He has no other words so he just looks at Amelia, expecting her to elaborate. But she doesn’t. She tries to hold his gaze, but her eyes begin to fill with tears and so she drops them. Her hands are folded into her lap, as if in prayer. The gesture seems absolutely ridiculous to him, given the circumstances. 

“Violet… the woman I saved from transportation who stole from me and then left without a trace into the night!”

At this Amelia stands. “Violet was driven away. She never ever stole from you. How dare you slander her in this way!”

“Well, what would you call this? She clearly stole you away,” He says.

“Oh. Is that what you think of me? That I am your property?” 

“Are you living with her… here?” He continues, ignoring her accusing question.

“She is one of the Pinchers’ tavern girls.”

“And this has been going on the whole time, all through our marriage? Whilst you were playing the holy innocent with me, you were dallying with that thieving…” 

“How lowly you must think of me,” she says. Her words bring him up short. He gives her one last incredulous look and then turns and leaves. He makes his way down the stairs and raises his voice.

“Who here knows where Violet Cross is? Violet Cross!” 

“Who asks for her?” He spins around and faces a man around his height with a cruel smile.

“It's alright, Isaac. I know him,” He hears a familiar voice at his back and turns to face Violet.

He feels Isaac’s arm on his. “Violet’s time costs, friend.”

“Leave off him, I’ll sort him out,” Violet insists. 

“Well be quick about it. Your next cull is waiting and I’ll not be robbed blind,” he says as he caresses the “T” branded on her hand. Violet looks away. He, himself, had ordered Violet to be branded a thief. It had seemed just at the time. But now, watching Isaac trace the branded “T” on her hand makes his stomach turn. Violet looks like she would like to make her branded hand into a fiery fist and sink it straight into Isaac's jaw, but she merely nods.

“Clear out soon, unless you have gold,” Isaac says to Josiah with a smile before he goes. 

Now that they are alone, Josiah suddenly feels all his righteous anger dissipating. He clutches at it clumsily, but it is no use.

“I thought you said you liked your freedom?” He asks, raising an eyebrow at her.

“This is only temporary, until I am able to sort something better for Amelia and myself.”

“Is it?” Josiah says, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Just as your arrangement with me was only temporary until you could whisk Amelia out of the safety of her honorable life…”

“I never stood in Amelia’s way. I knew you were the better choice for her. I wanted to protect her. I made her believe she was just a dalliance to me so that she would be free to marry you.” 

Josiah can’t meet her eyes now, it is too painful. How blunt she is about how they used him. 

“We only took up with each other after her Ma died. Ran into each other by chance. But she never played you false. She wouldn’t even kiss me until she wrote that letter telling you she were leaving.”

“Why wouldn’t she tell me the reason? The true reason.”

“Why should she give the truth to a man who would hang our kind if he had the chance?”

Her eyes are hard and unmerciful. He shrinks from them. She gives him one last look and then turns away from him to attend to her cull. 

He bows his head and walks out of the tavern. He doesn’t lift his head as he walks, just watches his boots as they make their uncertain steps along the road. He watches as his boots take him all the way to the cemetery. He sits heavily on the bench nearest his mother’s grave. He wishes he had some flowers for her, but as he could not have known that he would end up here, he is empty handed. 

He just stares at the headstone for a moment. _Beatrice Hodiah Hunt, Loving wife, mother, and child of God._ Then he moves forward and traces the stone’s engraving.

He remembers the way her face grew hard and implacable when she found him with Simon. That beautiful boy with his jet black curls. He loved books almost as much as he did and he never felt flustered with Simon the way he did around girls his age. Simon had been apprenticed to his father, until his mother discovered them in a passionate embrace in his father’s library. Simon had been dismissed, though his mother never revealed the reason to his father. 

He had pushed the experience so far down over the years that he could only remember the disgrace and shame, the guilt over Simon’s dismissal and his own self hatred. Yet now, coming from the confrontation with Violet, all he can remember was how soft Simon’s curls had felt under his shaking hand, how sweet the taste of his lips were on his.

He had reasoned the lewd attraction he had for men was merely something he could tame within himself, something he could master. He had, after all, been attracted to women as well. Amelia was testament to that. He had always thought that others like him were weak for not being able to stamp down their unnatural desires as he had done. But, Amelia… Amelia is apparently the same in this. And she is not weak. She is the very pinnacle of strength. And the moments he witnessed between her and Violet when he believed them to be nothing more than sisterly… those moments remind him, now, of those brief, happy moments he shared with Simon. His mother had damned it as sinful, yet if he were truly honest with himself, nothing had ever felt so holy. 

“Did you find her, then? Your woman?"

He looks up into the blue eyes of the same inebriated young woman who had given him the information on where Amelia was residing. This was the first time he had run into her again, in all the many deaths. 

She smiles, taking his sullen silence for confirmation no doubt, and sits down next to him, taking a swig from her flask. 

“You have people here?”

“My mother,” he answers. “You?”

“Yes,” she says in a small voice but doesn’t provide any more information. They sit there in silence for a moment. Then she turns and asks him, “She turn you down then, your lady?”

“She is my w… hm. My wife.” She doesn’t seem to have much to say to that and instead takes another sip from her flask. 

“I proposed to her here,” he says after a minute. He doesn’t know what possesses him to open his heart to her like this. But he realizes it is a mistake when her face screws up and she begins laughing at him. 

“What amuses you?” He asks a bit sternly.

“You proposed to your wife here? In a graveyard?” 

“What better place to pose such a serious q… q-uestion as a cemetery, where the very sacredness of life is staring one in the face?”

Now she really laughs, throws her head back and cackles. He can only look at her, shocked at the display. She takes a few gasping breaths and finally is able to still her mirth long enough to take another rather excessive draft from her flask. She swallows and casts her eyes to the sky. 

“It’ll be dark soon,” she says ominously as she trains her gaze back onto him. Her eyes are very clear and blue. When he looks into them he feels as if he were falling into the wide blue sky. She slowly hands him the flask.

When he lifts the flask from her hand, he realizes that it is empty.

“I’m dry,” she informs him smiling flirtatiously. “So, was my information of the lady’s whereabouts deserving of a drink?”

He should shrug her off, tell her to go home, to get off the streets, but he is lost. He finds himself nodding. She links her arm through his. He should tell her not to, he is a married man, an upright man… But of course he isn’t now, is he? 

After dropping the young woman at the tavern with enough coinage to spend on drink, he stumbles home alone, as he does every night. His is an inevitable and constant walk toward death. Yet it is a death that never ends anything. He has always believed in either rewards in heaven or eternal damnation, not this uncomfortable in between. It flies in the face of everything he once believed- the laws of absolutes that he use to worship. Just as Amelia and the purity of her character flies in the face of everything he use to believe of the relationship she shares with Violet Cross.

He falls into his bed and into a dreamless sleep, only waking at the insistent knocking at his door in the morning. 

He opens the door and there she is, Charlotte Wells, the woman who has ruined everything. 

He leans his head against the door frame and sighs.

“Miss Wells.”

Charlotte smiles at him, and places a hand on her hip, "No need for such formality,” she says, “After all, you transported my mother to America, let us all believe she kissed the rope, told us you’d sent her corpse to the surgeons hall, and now we are both continually dying and reviving together… I think you can call me Charlotte.”

“Why are you here?” He asks, trying to keep the edge of despair out of his voice and stop the pounding in his head. 

This question seems to take her aback.

“Why _wouldn’t_ I be here? I’ve been all over this poxy city looking for you. Why weren’t you looking for me? Don’t you think it’s completely cocked that we both keep dying? Do you think that we are connected in some way? I mean, other than you ruining my family’s life…”

“I… I ruined _your_ life?” He blusters thinking about all the maddening ways his life has gone downhill since his first dealings with the Wells family.

“Cool your cockles… I’m not here to-”

“No stop. I had this all figured out. Or I was figuring it out. I had the opportunity- the chance to finally make things right. And then you showed up and everything since has been terribly wrong! Nothing makes sense. I found out something… Amelia. My wife. She’s s…s-leeping with Violet Cross. She _… loves_ her.”

“Well fuck me to America and back. If you didn’t gather that your wife doesn’t fancy playing the flute, that is not on me. The way I see it, we are in this together. Now, if you want to meet me again and try to reason this out, I will be at Lady Isabella Fitzwilliam’s Boxing Match, yesterday night.”

With that she turns to go, but he steps out into the street and calls after her. 

“That’s an _illegal_ pugilism match?”

“Why don’t you stop by and break it up then, oh paragon of penal pontification?” She asks with a cheeky swirl of her skirts.

She turns down the street past the flower and fruit stalls and is gone. As Josiah looks after her he notices all the fruit is rotting and the flowers are dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Next Chapter is Charlotte's POV!


End file.
